


Foregone Conclusion

by heibai



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Dark Comedy, Emotional Rollercoaster, M/M, Please Don't Kill Me, Sadness, don't get your hopes up, littlest cancer patient, this is /that/ kind of story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 19:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14858582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heibai/pseuds/heibai
Summary: We all know how it’ll end,So let’s just enjoy the ride.





	Foregone Conclusion

**Author's Note:**

> i suggest for you to find a good time and place before reading this story because it is probably gonna be both time and emotionally consuming l o l

People say that you will always remember everything the moment someone drops important news on you.

 

Jeno didn’t have to search too far to find an example for that. He only needed to ask his dad about what happened on the day that his mother told him she’s expecting, and he would probably get a two-hour long stream-of-thought monologue, consisting from tiny, useless details like what he had in the morning, to the exact emotion that he went through when he received the phone call.

 

Jeno is his dad’s son, right? Yes. Through and through.

 

And so he wondered, why then, when he got his own version of a life-changingly important news, he processed it in a way so different from how his dad did.

 

He couldn’t remember where he was, who he was with, what he was doing, nothing. Nothing sticked to him at that critical moment, after his phone let out a distinct ping reserved specially for his closest school friend, after he fished it out from his pants’ back pocket, and after he fixed his glasses in preparation to read the content of Renjun’s text message.

 

Written in such a casual stance, as if he was only announcing the weather of the day (which, try as he might, Jeno also could never make himself remember), Renjun’s message read like this,

 

_‘Surprise. I have cancer.’_

 

Maybe he threw up his lunch after that. Maybe his brain committed an emergency shut down after being put through such unexpected onslaught of shock and everything else from that point onward was just a lucid dream conjured up by his mind to keep his vegetable self happy. He couldn’t remember.

 

Oh, how he wished it would happen the same way to everything that happened after.

 

 

 

__ _ __

 

 

 

Initially, he thought Renjun was lying.

 

 

_‘It’s not funny.’_

 

 

Jeno typed up those words on his phone with so much force, his fingernails would’ve left scratches on the screen if there wasn’t a protective layer of plastic that separated the two.

 

The answer to his accusation came not even a second later.

 

 

_‘I know it’s not. Who told you I was joking?’_

 

 

_‘Call?? Can we? Now?’_

 

 

He was not the one who was told that his body is hosting a deadly mutation, yet Jeno’s words were the one jumbled to oblivion caused by a sense of panic so strong, it was a whole new world of such intense emotions that he never thought he could possibly feel.

 

 _‘I can’t. I’m at the hospital._  
_Currently hiding at the restroom.  
_ _This is a highly illegal act.’_

 

Jeno’s world was reduced to only his mind, the feeling of hard plastic under the pad of his fingers, and the blaring brightness of his phone screen.

 

 _‘You just found out?!’_ Jeno wanted to type those words down. Angrily. With his capslock turned on. He wanted to leave Renjun a voice note consisting nothing but unintelligible screams of his frustration. The audacity. The nerve. The gall. He felt utterly insulted when he found out that _this_ was how his friend valued his worth. Telling him a very important message through an online chatting app.

 

 

_‘How dare you! This sort of things should never be told over text messages!’_

 

 

But the moment Jeno was about to hit _send_ on the long rambling text that was the essence of his bursting anger, Renjun beat him to it and stole his moment with a textual equivalent of a dismissive hand wave.

 

 _‘I gotta go, they’re looking for me._ _  
_ _Talk to you later.’_

 

_

 

Jeno admitted, after he spent a whole night lying wide awake on his bed muling over Renjun’s sudden revelation, that he might’ve overreacted a tiny bit.

 

Ok. So maybe Renjun was diagnosed with the _C word._ That doesn’t mean he has a death sentence hovering over his name, doesn’t it?

 

 _‘Doesn’t it?’_ He thought, watching from his desk as Renjun sauntered into their classroom the day after, while his face betrayed all of the emotions that he thought he was doing such a good job hiding. Poorly masked bewilderment, that’s it.

 

He hoped that Renjun would just jump in front of him with full on confettis and jazz hands and a mariachi band, screaming, _“it was all a joke, stupid!”_

 

Jeno promised to himself that he will forgive Renjun if it ever came down to that. He will. He promised he will. _Just tell me it was all a joke._

 

But when their gazes met, he instantly knew that it wasn’t the case.

 

Jeno, for once, was glad that he was too scared to switch from glasses to contacs. Because he decided that the more layers he have to separate him from the mere existence of this _new kind_ of Renjun is always going to be a good thing.

 

There was a sour smile sitting on Renjun’s lips. As if he was telling Jeno that, _‘I know. It’s messed up, isn’t it?’_ And at that moment he realised. It was all true.

 

In terms of hiding unnecessary emotions, they are two peas in a pod, really. As every single inner ticks of emotions would be projected onto their faces, however hard they tried to hide them. Essentially, it was the secret behind how they could sometimes communicate without saying even one peep of a word.

 

And that was also the reason behind how Jeno suddenly found himself biting into his lips so hard to stop them from falling off with how hard they were quivering. To use the dull pain as a mean to distract him from breaking into tears in the middle of a quickly filling class.

 

He told himself not to cry. At least not there, not then, not in front of the person who shouldn’t even _be_ there after everything that he’s been through the day before and yet there he was. Renjun. Strong as ever. And careless as ever, painfully demonstrated when he leaned closer, a hand placed carefully over Jeno’s balled up fist, so he could whisper some reassuring words to his ears, “don’t worry. You know this won’t be enough to kill a bad bitch like me.”

 

The bell ringing right after blared over the top of Jeno’s weak, disbelieving laughter. But judging from the smile on Renjun’s face, no longer sorrowful and instead was radiating the usual overabundance of warmth from within him, Jeno knew Renjun heard his reply that followed suit.

 

_“You twisted little shit.”_

 

 

_ _ _

 

 

Accepting reality, next he hoped that Renjun’s condition was _at least_ under control. A tiny mess in his genetic making that could be blamed on universe slipping up, easily fixed by the marvels of today’s medical world.

 

Turns out it wasn’t.

 

Renjun never actually told him how bad his condition was, on accords that he doesn’t want Jeno to worry more than he already has. (“Your hair will turn completely white if you keep on fussing over me like this all the time.” “As your friend, I have all the rights to know.” “As the one who’s going to die soon, I have all the rights to tell you to shut up.”)

 

Initially Renjun would still show up at school every single day. Then he would occasionally take half day offs. A few full day skips here and there, nothing more than once every two weeks. Then it was once every week. And not even three months after they both found out about his condition, Renjun had started missing half a week’s worth of class work in one go.

 

Rumours were spreading, of course. Gossips. Speculations.

 

Their head teacher knew and yet she didn’t dare say anything on accords of Renjun’s own privacy.  
  
Jeno knew and yet he was afraid of sharing his knowledge to anyone else, not even to his parents (although they already knew anyway, told directly by a bewilderingly nonchalant Renjun himself), as he feared that once he said that Renjun had _it,_ then everything would come true. As if it wasn’t already true to begin with.

 

The denial that he’s so carefully compartmentalise inside his brain would burst out from their respective cabinets and they’d chase after him. Drowning him in deafening screams that demanded him to finally face the truth. To face the _fact_ that Renjun essentially lied to him all those weeks ago. When he inadvertently jinxed himself as he told Jeno that he would be okay. That he would come out of this mess on top, with a victorious grin on his face, looking more alive than ever.

 

On each and every occasion when they saw each other face to face, or more exactly, on each and every day that Renjun was feeling healthy enough to wake up early and prep himself up for school, Jeno had to be reminded of that lie.

 

The gaunt eyes was the biggest reminder. His greyish skin too. Renjun has always stood more at the waifish side of the spectrum even when he was still healthy, but now he looked certifiably ghoulish.

 

It was their class’ best kept unspoken truth that one of them was clearly closer in standing with death than the rest of combined.

 

_

 

One random early morning, someone managed to burst the bubble of tightly maintained ignorance.

 

As usual, because it’s an important event, Jeno wasn’t able to clearly recall what happened on ground zero when the bomb was dropped.

 

He only remembered Renjun ambling his way into the class when he heard someone saying, loud enough to be heard over the casual conversations of students waiting for the bell to ring, yet quiet enough that the speaker could’ve gotten himself off the hook if he decided to feign innocence and claim that _he was saying it for nobody else’s attention but himself._

 

“Why do you still bother coming to school if you know you’re not going to need all this shit in a few months?”

 

Jeno was so ready to square up on whoever was that insensitive douchebag who dared grabbing the proverbial cat by the loose skin on its nape and yanked it clean out of the bag with. In this case, the cat was everyone’s fear of mortality, and the bag was the thin veneer of public decency.

 

Jeno was so ready to use the blinding rage to sack someone on their jaws, but he somehow found himself not being able to do anything but sit there, petrified on his seat.

 

Maybe because he feared that those words somehow was unknowingly said by himself. His unconscious finally getting tired of this exhausting tippy-toeing around the elephant in the room and finally letting go of the question that’d been coiling itself so tight around Jeno’s tonsils, he was always afraid he might accidentally blurt it out with every sneeze that he let out.

 

But no. Turns out it wasn’t him who said it.

 

Although he might’ve just been and it wouldn’t have made any difference.

 

Because the way Renjun gave him a fleeting glance before boldly addressing the culprit (the _hero_ of the class, actually, as he’d liberated them from the weight of an anvil that’s been constantly hovering over their heads for the past two months), told him way more information than any of the mindless, meme-filled chats that they would engage in everytime Renjun was feeling, as he said it himself, _“like a week old tangerine thrown on a freight train’s windshield as it was running full speed through a field of freshly fertilised farmland.”_

 

“Man, to be honest? _Mood._ ”

 

He silently sat down on his chair after that, and for the rest of that day, everything seemed to return back to normal. To a point far enough in the past where Renjun was nothing more but the same ol’ student at their school, whose capability of stressing out only reached the point of _‘oh god I forgot to study for the geography pop quiz’,_ and Jeno could finally let out the long exhale that he’d unknowingly kept inside of him for acting as the sole gatekeeper of Renjun’s secret.

 

It was a good day for the both of them.

 

Jeno knew. Because he asked him when he accompanied Renjun on the short walk to his mom who was waving at them from inside her car. “Are you happy?”

 

Renjun was still looking ahead when he answered, but his smile bled into his words and for a moment Jeno believed that maybe the sun could still rise up on his horizon.

 

“I am.”

 

_

 

The sun didn’t shine for very long, it soon dawned on Jeno. Because after that day, he spent a whole week calling Renjun’s home asking if he would be coming to school, and all he got for an answer was his mom telling him a saddened _‘no.’_

 

He quickly learned, that whether he liked it or not, it was time for them to prepare for the home stretch.

 

 

_ _ _

 

 

They’ve never really talked about the inevitable, the two of them.

 

Probably because everytime Jeno tried to steer their conversation to the danger zone, Renjun would always distract him with something so wildly random and nonsensical that he had no other choice but to follow along.

 

Probably it was also because Jeno suddenly remembered, that they’ve only known each other for three years. Two years and a half, really. School friends who met each other on the first day of orientation by chance and somehow managing to keep each other stuck to the hips from that day on.

 

And so on top of his anxiety, Jeno had to also deal with guilt and uncertainty. The fear of facing some uncrossable distance stemming from Jeno’s acknowledgement that he might’ve not earned what it takes to be someone that Renjun could fully trust and confide in.

 

Maybe he already had another friend. Older friend, more trusted, that was chosen by Renjun as a trash bin for all of his more messed up thoughts.

 

But even if he was swimming in the middle of his unkempt emotional state, Jeno still could sense that the situation they were in was kind of unfair on his part. Renjun expecting him to always be there when he needed him, yet Jeno was not allowed to come to terms with a situation that he was essentially being forced into?

 

He wanted to demand justice. He wanted to barge into Renjun’s house and confront him and appeal to him that he too deserve to _know._

 

But then, everytime he’d gathered the courage to ask, Renjun would chat him up from his hiding spot at the hospital’s restroom, or call him up from the landline in the nurse’s office, words and voice dripping in such forced display of artificial strength as he asked Jeno to, _‘make me laugh. Please say anything and make me laugh,’_ it gave him no other choice but to yield.

 

 _‘Later,’_ Jeno told himself everytime he had to be content with keeping up the hunky-dory charades between them, blocking the text he’d typed up on his phone and deleting it, _‘we can talk about it later.’_

 

But later can only mean so much. Later can only have its power if there’s a _later_ to spare. A period in the future that they could go to, _together._ Later means jack shit if they ran out of the only currency in life that truly mattered. Time.

 

 _Later_ will only be cashed out as nothing but regret if he didn’t say it _now._

 

___

 

His _later_ finally came one Friday afternoon, when Renjun called him up and asked if he has any plans after school.

 

“No, I’m free. What’s up?”

 

_“Want to come and play at my house? It’s been so long since we saw each other.”_

 

Two whole weeks, to be exact. And Jeno would be lying if he didn’t say that he too was missing Renjun terribly. “That sounds fun. But what are you doing at home? Aren’t you missing your doctor appointment or something?”

 

There was a small pause before Renjun spoke again. His words that flowed out after he popped his previously bitten lip sounded no louder than a secretive mumble, _“there’s also something I need to tell you.”_

 

“Is it good or bad news?”

 

Renjun let out a sharp laughter at that. Bitter, bitter laughter.

 

_“Horrendously bad, stupid. As if you can’t tell.”_

 

He guessed that at that point, there was nothing else they could do but laugh at the irony and cruelty of it all. How someone who never feared death became the one who attracted it the most, and how someone who feared it terribly became the one who has to hold the hand of someone doomed to walk down the one way road to the great beyond.

 

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Don’t die on me yet.”

 

_“I will never. Oh! By the way, can you get me some spicy macaroni chips from the cafeteria? I might’ve actually missed that sinful shit more that I missed you.”_

 

 _‘It’s already that bad, isn’t it?’_ Jeno wanted to ask, to beg for Renjun to confirm his worry, even if the knowledge could only afford him just one night of a nightmare-free sleep.

 

Although, as usual, he yielded. Instead, Jeno told him that he’d buy him thirty packs of macaronis, “only if this means that you’ll have to survive for another month to finish them all.”

 

 

_

 

Jeno didn’t know if he should be awed or disturbed by Renjun’s flippant attitude towards his own impending mortality.

 

As he rounded the corner of his dry kitchen, Jeno saw him sitting on a sofa, reading a book, snuggling with his beloved plushie and completely wrapped up in a lump of blanket with his legs propped up on the armrest. He looked significantly less gaunt since the last time they met and Jeno found it hard to believe that this person, this person could’ve lied to him and told him that he only got down with a severe case of the flu and Jeno would’ve believed it in a heartbeat.

 

“Spicy macaroni!” Renjun yelled when he noticed Jeno’s presence in the room, before waving his hand as a way to beckon him over to his cozied up spot.

 

“I hope you don’t mind hanging out here. My room is a total mess,” Renjun said while patting the empty spot right beside him.

 

“You’ve seen _my_ room, you know how much mess I can handle,” Jeno retorted as he dropped the heavy plastic bag on Renjun’s lap, watching with gladness as he saw his friend practically bouncing on his seat from utter excitedness.

 

Renjun took one packet out, ripped it open as if he was a smoker in withdrawal and that macaroni was his first smoke in weeks, before proceeding to tip half of its content into his mouth.

 

“Calm down fatso, you’ll die from choking on some stupid macaroni before the cancer kills you.”

 

It was the first time that Jeno ever _said_ the word “cancer”. No longer just _it,_ no longer just the _c-word,_ he was faced with having to surve through the wave of panic and realisation that _‘this is_ really _it’,_ in the short span of time as he waited for Renjun’s wheezing, breathless laughter to come to an end.

 

“That’s a nice segway,” Renjun’s words came out in a messy mumble as he was using the back of his hand to wipe off the salty crumbs off the corner of his lips, “I need to tell you something.”

 

“Shoot.” He said just that one, short word, and yet Jeno still was unable to hide the fear from gushing through the cracks of his choked up voice.

 

“I’m stopping all of my chemo treatments.”

 

Casual. Renjun said those words so casually. A breezy, lazy tone in his voice and calm demeanor as he tried to hand a near catatonic Jeno his share of spicy macaroni snack.

 

Just when Renjun was about to give up on his efforts and was about to drop the packet on Jeno’s lap, he managed to find enough courage to both open up his hand to take Renjun’s offering, and also his mouth, to crack another one, short word.

 

“Why?”

 

“Why? Because it doesn’t work.” Renjun muttered, casually, through the sound of him chewing on one of the macaronis. As he looked ahead, _casually,_ to stare at the visibly disturbed Jeno.

 

“How… How do you know that and,- and how could you… are you just going to give up?”

 

“If that’s how you want to call it, then go off, I guess,” he chuckled, popping another piece of snack as if they were talking about silly everyday things, “I’m calling it _‘accepting death with dignity.’_ ”

 

In a moment of blinding frustration, Jeno succumbed into his desire to _stop_ Renjun’s nonsense and found himself lurching forward, his hand grasping around Renjun’s terribly frail wrist as it was halfway en route to his mouth. Jeno exerted enough pressure on his brittle bone that he expected it to cost Renjun a little wince of pain. But instead, there was only an annoyed frown plastered over his face, and Jeno was forced to admit that this tiny little thing could never match with the suffering he’s gone through for the past few months.

 

Renjun must’ve known what Jeno was thinking. After seeing the minute shakings of his head and how his eyes were glazed over in tears he was, once again, trying so hard to contain, Renjun finally took pity of him and began to explain.

 

“My hospital room smells like disinfectants and _death._ I woke up every morning feeling like _death._ I look into the eyes of the people that treat me and all I see is _death._ It’s everywhere, Jeno. Death, and this thing. This alien _thing_ that’s invading me.” Renjun could’ve easily yanked his hand away from Jeno’s slacked fingers. Renjun could’ve even done it while wearing a disgusted expression on his face and Jeno wouldn’t have mind it. And yet he didn’t.

 

Instead, Renjun swiveled his hand around, this way and that, until he could comfortably envelop Jeno’s clammy fingers inside his own chilli-flake-laden grasp.

 

“I only have two choices. Wait for it to come while being locked inside a hospital room, or wait for it in the comfort of my own home,” the way Renjun’s fingers began to tap some random rhythm on the back of his hand was enough to take Jeno down from a ten on anxiety scale, to somewhere more in the middle. A six, maybe. He figured that for as long as he had to deal with this unbelievable friend of his, he’d never cross the middle threshold back to the comfortable, simmering two that he couldn’t believe he could ever miss.

 

“Which one will _you_ choose?”

 

“I would’ve keep on trying.”

 

“That’s how _you_ want to deal with death! You!” Renjun used his free hand to sharply point his index finger at Jeno, before swishing it around and jabbing his fingernail onto his prominently jutting collarbone, “ _I_ am not like that. Whatever it is that you want me to do? Keeping my faith on something that will just make me die faster?! I can’t. _I just can’t.”_

 

After their sudden burst of commotion, the silence that followed was deafening. Renjun was no longer chewing on his snack, he no longer tried to comfort Jeno with any of his monotonous finger-tapping. He only sat there, mute but for his ragged breath, staring ahead on an imaginary spot with his eyes glazed over with something Jeno had never seen him convey ever before. Pure, unadulterated rage.

 

“It’s not fair.” It was a stupid thing to say, as if he just pointed out that water is wet, or that getting stabbed in the stomach hurts. But he couldn’t bear spending another second simmering inside the suffocating silence that if saying stupid, painfully obvious statements are what’s needed to end it, then so be it.

 

It worked, thankfully. Even if for just a tiny bit. Because it managed to coax a chuckle out of Renjun, and that little acerbic smile on his lips was a much better accessory for his face than any downturned grimace could ever hope to be. “You tell me.”

 

“How long?” Jeno asked that question even before Renjun had finished saying his last sentence. Cutting them in two between _tell_ and _me._ Because he knew, if he yielded this time, then there might never be a later that they can ever go to.

 

Instead of answering, Renjun used his index finger to carefully fix Jeno’s glasses that’d slid down his nose in the midst of their heated conversation. Slightly annoyed, Jeno swished his hand in front of his face to keep Renjun from messing with his glasses, and repeated his question with a somewhat firmer tone.

 

“Three,” Renjun finally answered while wiping his oily fingers on his pajama pants.

 

“Three what? Months? Years?” It was clear, from the way he spoke (like someone slipping down an icy decline, all messy and confused), that Jeno was very much panicked after hearing Renjun’s sudden revelation. But instead of joining him on getting his nerves strung out like an electric cable stripped raw, Renjun decided to mess with Jeno by flashing him on of his much missed mischievous grin.

 

“Weeks?! _Days?!_ Renjun don’t do this to me!”

 

The longer Renjun played up his coy front, the more Jeno panicked, and the more amused Renjun became. It was an endless loop of good-natured cruelty that was only broken when Renjun couldn’t keep a straight face any longer and broke off into a loud, ringing laughter.

 

Sometimes, Jeno would contemplate if it was a good idea to make Renjun laugh. When they exchanged stories over the phone, he couldn’t really sense it all that well, even though he knew of what was happening. But now that it happened in front of his own eyes, Jeno could see, _and hear,_ how much effort was exerted for Renjun to do something so basic and simple as _laughing._ His ribcage seemed to be rattling on its hinges, and Jeno was so afraid that his lungs would suddenly collapse in and on itself from how hard Renjun’s wheezes sounded. It scared him that Renjun’s laughter sounded less and less like a _laughter_ and more like a painful fit of coughs.

 

“Months! Months Jeno,- god I can’t believe how slow you can be,” he spluttered, wiping the tears that’d collected at the corners of his eyes, “but they also told me at the start of my treatment that I could go on for another year or so. And hey, here I am. So I mean, three months, one month, two weeks, you’ll never know, I guess.”

 

But Renjun always begged Jeno to make him laugh, and will never listen to Jeno’s advice that _‘maybe laughing after you just had a gastroscopy isn’t a very smart idea’_.

 

It wasn’t even jokes. It was mostly just requests for Jeno to tell about any weird things that happened on his life, truthfully, because even Jeno himself was weirded out by how Renjun was able to laugh that hard when listening to his non-existent sense of humour.

 

Between the two of them, Renjun has always been the funny one. And after he was diagnosed, his brand of humour would more often than not fell into the box labelled _‘morbid black comedy’_ and often Jeno would wonder if the drops of tears that were collected at the corners of his glasses frame everytime Renjun cracked a joke so _wrong_ it made his stomach hurt, were fully caused by his laughters.

 

“Boys, Renjun, dinner is almost ready. Can you please help set up the table?” His mom’s head popped into the living room’s doorway, instantly enticing an excited hoot from Renjun’s throat. He shocked Jeno when he kicked off the blanket from his legs and scurried his way to the kitchen, a surprising display of agility and speed that he didn’t expect for Renjun to still have.

 

Jeno could only follow his steps, helping Renjun pick out some cutleries while giving Mrs. Huang a polite smile when she gave him an equally polite nod. He silently observed the sweet gestures that Renjun’s mom did as he was walking back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, only averting his gaze when she leaned in to give Renjun a kiss on his forehead. A scene much too intimate it sent a sharp pang of pain on his chest. “Don’t forget to take your drops, love.”

 

“Oh my god, it’s 420 blaze it time.”

 

“It’s the _what time,-?”_

 

Renjun looked at Jeno as if he forgot to introduce his name after talking to a stranger for a prolonged period of time, “I’ve never shown you?! Man, you’re missing out. Wait here.”

 

The loud bangs and clutters when Renjun rummaged through a big serving tray filled with medicine packets only amounted to a small, stained glass bottle that he held with such pride and care as he showed it to Jeno.

 

“Give me your hand,” but the way Renjun grabbed and forced Jeno to open up his palm undermined his soft request. He then dropped two dots of darkly colored oil and gestured for Jeno to lick it up.

 

He only did it because he trust that Renjun could never possibly screw over him so hard that he deliberately gave a strong cancer medicine to a healthy person. Although, he should’ve known better than to trust Renjun blindly, because no sooner after he gave his palm a lick, a strong odour of something that he could only describe as _‘salty, clipped grass left in the sun for too long,’_ hit him straight on his sinuses, and he heard Renjun’s amused giggle after he saw the look of disgust on Jeno’s wrinkled nose.

 

“Hemp oil. _Weed oil._ Marijuana. Highly illegal, eh?”

 

“So what now? Did I just broke the law? Will I soon see you as a headless chicken?”

 

“None of that, sadly.”

 

The real use of it was far less adventurous, and it left a bitter taste at the back of Jeno’s throat that he couldn’t distinguish from the taste of the oil that’d begun to coat his mouth cavity in a pungent, slimy screen.

 

“This helps me eat,” he said after dropping half a pipette worth of oil straight to his mouth, “cool, isn’t it? Not only am I cancerous, I’m also a weed addict.”

 

Renjun capped it off with a loud smack of his lips, “I hope you’re not ashamed for being my friend.”

 

He already disappeared back to the kitchen before he could hear Jeno’s response to his un-question.

 

No worries, though, they both knew the answer anyway.

 

 

_ _ _

 

Renjun promised that after dinner, they could spend the entire evening playing whatever game Jeno so choose. But when the time came for doing just that, the loading screen hasn't even finished buffering when he looked back and found that Renjun has passed out cold on the sofa. His head resting on his arms, one dangling down to the floor and causing occasional clacking sound each time his fingers twitched.

 

In fact, his whole body seemed to twitch every few seconds or so, and each time his face would scrunch up, before he would let out a quick murmur of the indiscernible sort. It was as if sleep was the only time he would allow himself to let down his guard, because it was the first time Jeno was able to see him be vulnerable, for once.

 

"Jun," he called out, first soft, because from how disturbed he looked, Jeno deduced that it couldn't be that deep of a sleep. Jeno only repeated it again, louder this time, when he didn't get anything in response, "Renjun."

 

"Mmh-what?"

 

"Go sleep in your room."

 

There was a little bit of delay before he responded, a few seconds spent with him only blinking his eyes before he picked his arm from the floor, and gave Jeno a smile so simple and innocent he nearly experienced a memory whiplash. As the last time he ever saw Renjun gave him such a smile, was on the first month that they spent getting to know each other. "I want to see you play."

 

"We can do this tomorrow." He hasn't finished his words when Renjun cut through it with a weak scoff. A tiny panic that amounted from the thought that he'd said something wrong began to crawl up his spine, but Jeno didn't have to wonder for long because Renjun gave him the answer to his wonderings with a soft pat on his shoulder.

 

"There might never be a tomorrow for me."

 

That silenced him real quick, awkwardly nodding his silent yes-es before he settled his back at the empty spot of the sofa, at the makeshift nest that was naturally formed from the way Renjun positioned himself on it. Framed by Renjun's knees on his left, and his dangling arm on his right, Jeno felt like he was nearly suffocating from the sudden drop of lightness in the air. A natural cage that he couldn't seem to escape from.

 

He absently skipped through the first few moments of the game's cutscene as his mind wandered to the spot a few centimeters away from his. He swore he saw a scowl on Renjun's face. Angry? Was Renjun angry at him for insinuating that he will have a longer life than him? His unbearable sense of guilt was starting to make his fingers shake to the point where he could no longer hide it, proven from how often he missed the timing at the game. It came to the point that he had to pause it, right at the moment when the enemy's arm was on a sure trajectory to give him the last hit needed to knock him out of the level.

 

"That was shit," Renjun mumbled from behind him, some sort of a gigglish chortle escaping his semi awake mind state.

 

"I,-" Jeno swore, the reason he turned to face Renjun was because he wanted to apologise. For what, he didn't even know. But the word 'sorry' was hanging so closely at the tip of his tongue that he figured, letting it drip while he was looking straight into Renjun's heavy lidded eyes was a much more preferable option that to say it while still pretending to be engrossed to the game and risk offending him even more. But the moment he looked at Renjun's face, and was greeted with a pleasantly surprised pout that slowly shifted into a curious smile, Jeno was thankfully proven wrong for his assumptions.

 

"What?" Renjun asked when Jeno ended up only staring at him with an empty expression for the next five seconds.

 

Assumptions are just that. Assumptions. In such little time that they had left, Jeno decided to turn his oath, from _'no fear in apologising for my mistakes as I don't want him to haunt me for the rest of my life',_ to _'no assuming in the first place so I don't have to make mistakes.'_

 

"I want to get some water. Do you want me to get you some?"

 

_

 

His mom was washing the dishes when Jeno arrived at the back kitchen with two mugs on either of his hands. He contemplated for a short while to just quickly and silently fill them with water and bailing out of there before she noticed. But before he could do just that, she decided to take his ability to make said decision out of his hand by looking over her shoulder, after she was alerted by Jeno's own blunder of nearly tripping over a tea towel discarded haphazardly on the floor, and asked him with a warm sounding question, "how was the food?"

 

"Very great auntie." He could feel his cheeks warming up into a blush and so Jeno quickly ducked out of her gaze and pretended to wrestle with the cap of the water bottle standing at the corner of the kitchen's prep table. But his theatrical act was cut short when his eyes landed on the phone screen that was blinking animatedly on a cutting board that she must've used when preparing for their meal earlier.

 

_'Project manager Mrs. XX - 2 missed calls'_

 

_'Ms. YY PA - 3 missed calls'_

 

_'Mr. OO CTO - 2 missed calls'_

 

And rows and rows of similarly ignored calls and messages that fully covered the screen of her phone, which, was still blinking at the moment when he finally caught on with the extent of her sacrifices. Jeno was sure that if he dared touch it, the phone would've burned the tip of his fingers from being overheated to hell and back again.

 

He looked back up from Mrs. Huang’s phone and only then did he realise how sloppy the state of the kitchen was. Grease stains on the handle of the fridge, crusted smears of peanut butter and spills of chocolate sprinkles mingled with dried trimmings of carrots and onion husks like a haphazard rendition of Christmas decorations, and eggshells crushed into dust under the repeated trips that she did from the sink to the dining room. The floor was somehow slippery and sticky at the same time and Jeno involuntarily regretted the fact that he decided to take off his socks.

 

A quick glance to Mrs. Huang and her sight told him the same story as her kitchen did. Locks of hair escaped from her messy bun like leaked stuffing from an old plushie, and the creases on her work attires showed that she hasn't bothered to iron them for god knows how long. Only then did Jeno remember that he never really had any conversation about Renjun's situation with her if he didn't count the 5 second phone calls when he asked her if Renjun would be coming to school or not.

 

"Auntie," he didn't know why he did that. He didn't know why he dared reach out to her like that and risk a certain death of his own when he felt that regret was quickly climbing up the chamber of his throat and causing him to feel as if his tonsils has grown five times their normal size. Well, he didn’t need to wait too long to find his reason. He instantly knew why when she turned around, wiping her drenched hands on her dull pencil skirt and looking at him with an encouraging look that only mothers would have. Like she was telling him to 'go on' with only one quick raise of her eyebrows.

 

He'd never seen her be as tired as this. Not even when she stumbled into the dining room in the middle of their uneventful Friday game night that they’d spend doing essentially jack shit. He would ask Renjun for why she’s home that late and he would tell Jeno that _'you think this is late? She's been going home at 12 AM for nearly two weeks now.'_

 

But she always returned with late night snacks for Renjun, and for Jeno too, if he stayed behind for a few hours too long on those uneventful Friday nights. She would put it on the floor in front of them, ruffle Renjun's hair before giving his forehead a quick kiss, wave her hand on a pink-as-a-rose Jeno, before she disappeared up the stairs with a certain amble to her gait.

 

That ritual of theirs seemed to happen so long ago. A complete cycle of a lifetime ago. Now, she walked towards him with a visible hunch on her usually proud shoulders and Jeno could see the years catching up with her in a nearly vengeful manner from the silver tufts of hair around her temple that she no longer bothered to dye.

 

"What's the matter, are you okay?" When she first asked this, Jeno could feel her motherly sense seeping out of her pores in droves. But when he didn't answer for an extended amount of time, long enough for her to first discern that yes, it was a silence that contained something other than nothing, and long enough for her to study his unfocused eyes and gather by herself the unsaid message that he was not able to say, it was gone. All of it. Everything. Gone.

 

It was as if he was standing in a room with only one lightbulb hanging above him and all of a sudden, it was turned off. He was lost in the middle of nowhere, essentially. In a panic, he tried to search for that sense of dependability and reassurance that he would always feel from authoritative figures that he trusted, but for the first time in his life, he couldn't find it.

 

"He told you."

 

Mrs. Huang was alive, well and breathing. Jeno could still feel her human warmth emanating from her body with them standing so close to each other as they were then. But Jeno sensed nothing but a terrifyingly cold and empty, desolate wasteland the next time she looked at him.

 

At that moment, they were thrown off the pre-existing rungs of social status quo. Not in a sense that she stepped down from her seniority ladder and looked at him as a scared child, or him stepping up and giving her a comforting more wise than his age would have been able to muster up. But in a sense that they were stripped of their identity as human beings. She was no longer a mother of someone and he was no longer a son of someone. Just two lost souls floating in the cosmic ether who couldn't begin to comprehend the way their terrifyingly chaotic universe worked.

 

But in one blink of an eye everything snapped back into place and Mrs. Huang seemed to be so disturbed by the experience that she had to retreat to the tall kitchen stool in order to gain back her bearings.

 

"He decided on it himself. I couldn't stop him," in the calmness of an empty kitchen on a late afternoon, she talked with such unnecessary haste in her voice that Jeno could only assign one reason for why she did so. Throwing away blame from herself. Mrs. Huang's fingers visibly trembled, just like his, when she rubbed the bridge of her nose. She rubbed it so firmly the skin turned the shade of a sickly yellow the moment she let it go and clasped her hand in front of her mouth. Seemingly in a way to hide from him the fact that she was just as terrified as a 17 years old child, "what scares me is how… I didn't try harder to stop him."

 

She was silent for a long while that Jeno had started to nervously fiddle with the metal cap of the water bottle when Mrs. Huang took a sharp breath and unceremoniously spat out her confession, "Am I a bad mother?" It didn’t come off as a question. More like a way for her to beg for a confirmation because she was tired of hearing people telling her an answer that she didn't want to hear. "I didn't… I didn't,-" _notice it sooner, do anything sooner, try harder, give him a better treatment, make more time to be with him, think that I would give him the curse by birthing him in the first place._ The burden and guilt that'd seemingly haunted her from the day they all found out three months ago was straining to be said, only held back by a weak barrier created from her thinly pursed lips. But in the end, she decided against it and the unsaid sentences only rolled across her glistening eyes like the blurb of headlines running along the bottom of the midnight news broadcast.

 

“I don’t know,-” _what to do,_ he wanted to say. But similarly to her attempt of saying her confession, it was cut short. Because he knew that if he said any other peep, even if just for one word, he would burst into tears and he didn’t know of he was ready to let himself fall that quickly to the deep end in front of another living and breathing soul. But his words could also take a double meaning, in a way that he too didn’t know if Mrs. Huang is a good mother or not because yes, Jeno told himself that he wouldn't assume. But it was so easy to guess what Mrs. Huang was thinking when they were also the thoughts that constantly flashed inside his mind's eye. Did he blame her for some of the things that happened to Renjun? He would be lying if he say that he didn’t.

 

She seemed to know of what he was thinking, judging from the bittersweet smile she put up on her lips as she gestured for a hug. Hesitating, Jeno still clutched the handle of his mug with a terrifying amount of strength when he yielded and went in for the hug. It was just a miracle they didn’t disintegrate under his worrying fingers.

 

“I’m sorry,” she only said those words during the long duration of their languid hug, the hug of two mentally and physically exhausted people. Was it to atone for her sins, beg for his forgiveness, or because she knew the treacherous journey that awaited the both of them in the future, he didn’t know exactly why. But he’s started to feel her motherly warmth crawling to the tips of her limbs and for just that one moment, he was glad that they didn’t lose her. They couldn’t afford that to happen.

 

 

_ _ _

 

 

 

_'My mom is a strong, independent, modern woman.  
She doesn’t need any underaged twink to keep her company or anything.’ _

 

 _‘You’re making everything sound creepy._ _  
_ _I was just trying to be nice!’_

 

_‘And I’m just trying to be realistic.’_

 

 _‘..._ _  
_ _-_-’_

 

 _‘Told you,_  
_You don’t need to do anything weird._  
_Just come to my funeral, cry a lil bit, go home.’_

 

 _‘She’s going to be alone._ _  
_ _With you and Sicheng gone, technically.’_

 

_‘Continue living your life. All that shiz.’_

 

 _‘Please? Let me be there._ _  
_ _At least until she’s… feeling better.’_

 

 _‘Gosh there’s no stopping you, isn’t it?_ _  
_ _Whatever then.’_

 

_‘Thankyou.’_

 

 _‘But if I see you do anything bad,_ _  
_ _I’ll be the one sending you straight to hell.’_

 

_‘........_

_-_-’_

 

 

  
 

_ _ _

 

 

 

Stolen time.

 

Essentially that’s what everything actually was. The small, quaint little ritual that they have after Renjun gave Jeno his final verdict.

 

Pretending not to see when the truth was standing on the doorway, tapping its foot with arms folded over its chest as if saying _‘how long are you going to make me wait?’_

 

At least that’s what Jeno felt on all of his afternoon visits to Renjun’s home. Giving him notes from school, making their homeworks together, becoming a model for when he wants to paint, eating spicy macaroni chips, figuring out that Renjun really didn’t have anyone but him because he’s never seen anyone else during their afternoon meetups. Playing pretend.

 

But Renjun had a different take on his decision to keep himself at the top of their studies. “At least with this, if a miracle happens and I got cured in a night, I am ready to get back on my feet as soon as I could get on the ground without feeling like a palm tree in the middle of a typhoon.”

 

Jeno would always feel a sliver of hope everytime Renjun said that. Which he knew was a silly thing, as then, as if he could sense the welling optimism that has no place in his life, Renjun would always take his hope away with a quick swipe of his dry wit,

 

“I only have 0.0001% chance to get that miracle, Mr. Lee. And even then, I haven’t gone to church in such a long time the number might actually be smaller than that.”

 

“I would’ve prayed for you if you want me to.”

 

Renjun scoffed at that, and Jeno suspected it was done to turn a potent cough into something more Jeno-friendly, “you? Pray? Please don’t. Your tongue would burn out and I’ll lose my only source of entertainment around here.”

 

At that moment, in the midst of a casually morbid conversation, Jeno almost said it. The question that nagged at the forefront of his mind, stuck at the end of his tongue, which he had to sharply bite in order to stop him from saying it.

 

_How can you not be afraid?_

 

Or when the urge resurfaced during their time wasted chatting about nonsense with glasses mushed on top of pillows wet with freshly washed hair, Jeno would compulsively hit the edge of his phone on the wall behind his bed. Before blocking the typed out questions and deleting it in one touch of a button.

 

_‘Why is it that I’m more afraid of you dying than you are?’_

 

_‘How are you? Is everything okay?’_

 

_‘Is there anything that you want to tell me?’_

 

Jeno stared at all of those questions, mulled over them, fingers and lips itching to ask them because his desire to share what he felt and understand whatever it was that flowed under Renjun’s mind was causing his chest to constantly throb in a dull ache.

 

He always told himself that, _‘today is the day that I will ask him.’_ The day where they could finally have a more serious talk regarding Renjun’s situation.

 

But everytime he walked into Renjun’s living room and saw the shadow casted over his face lifting up with every snorts and giggles caused by their light-hearted talks, Jeno would hesitate from opening up in the fear that he will ruin the mood.

 

Even on days when Renjun would be in too much pain to get up from his sofa (yet was stubborn enough to get out of his bed in the first place, as he thought that the bedroom of a dying person is too depressing a place to act as an activity room for people as lively as them), Jeno still didn’t have the heart to tell him that he knew. _‘I knew that you’re in pain. It’s ok to show it to me. I swear I won’t pity you.’_

 

Jeno hesitated, and hesitated, and hesitated, and the next thing he knew, it would already be thirty minutes past eight and he’d have to go home before his parents started yelling at him over the phone. He had to be content in succumbing back to the unbreakable shackles of his inner _‘I’ll ask him about it later.’_

 

And we all know the flaw of that sort of mindset.

 

 _‘Two months left,’_ Jeno thought one day when he was stealthily observing Renjun as he was doodling squiggly things on the corner of Jeno’s photocopied math exercise. Stealthily, because if Renjun knew he was being watched, he would usually stop everything that he was doing. And for some morbid second, Jeno found himself thinking ahead, of how after Renjun’s passed, he could cut out this mindless doodle and tape it on the wall of his study desk.

 

A simple, beautifully abstract way to remember an equally elusive person.

 

_

 

It was twenty minutes past nine when Jeno’s phone unexpectedly let out a familiar ping.

 

_‘Yo J.’_

 

His greetings were answered with confusion.

 

_‘Why are you still awake?’_

 

If only they were talking, then not only confusion, but Jeno would have an easier time conveying his worry too.

 

_‘¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_

_Talk to me?’_

 

_‘Call?’_

 

_‘Yeah, why not.’_

 

Jeno hasn’t even finished settling up into a nice seated position before his phone started ringing. _‘He’s excited,’_ he thought, clicking on the green button with a delighted smile on his lips. A smile that was quickly wiped away when he heard how big the mood discrepancy between the two of them was.

 

 _“Tell me about your day.”_ The silent sound of Renjun’s breath hitching at the end of his sentence gave away the fact that he was almost desperate enough to beg. _Please?_

 

“I already did earlier, don’t you remember anything?”

 

_“Then make up a lie.”_

 

Silence once more.

 

Telling Renjun a lie would suffice. He would’ve even enjoyed a fabricated tale of how Jeno’s day ended with a showdown with a minotaur more than anything else. But Jeno was suddenly overtaken with a strong impulse to do something _more,_ and from how loud Renjun gasped when he proposed a better plan for the night, Jeno knew his act of courage was just as unexpected to him as it was to himself.

 

“Do you want me to go to your place?”

 

Renjun hesitated long enough before taking his turn to speak, long enough for Jeno to know that he didn’t want to admit that he wanted nothing more but to accept Jeno’s proposal. _“It’s already late, your parents won’t let you.”_ The fact that Renjun didn’t even bother to deny Jeno’s offer too betrayed his true, hidden intention.

 

“They won’t mind.”

 

Another contemplation, another useless fight with his weak inner self who was trying to refuse, because in the end, Renjun only let out a soft sigh of his gratitude, _“... thankyou.”_

 

“No worries man, see you soon. Don’t die on me yet.”

 

 _“I will never,”_ Jeno heard Renjun’s nasally chuckle and it gave him relief. At least it should be enough for him to not chew his bottom lip raw on his bike ride to Renjun’s home.

 

_

 

Jeno wasn’t hoping that he could sneak out of his house unnoticed. Believe him, he _legitimately_ was going to ask for his parents’ permission. But when he saw the judging look on his parents as he approached them on the dining room, Jeno suddenly regretted the fact that he never lived his life rebelliously.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

His arms started to fly around the space in front of his face to ease his stuttering explanation, “Renjun’s house. Just for awhile, I promise I’ll return before 11,-,”

 

“Jeno,-”

 

“It’s not going to be long, I promise, i’m just gonna drop by and return,-”

 

“Jeno.” The sound of his mom roughly placing her glass of water on the table was the one that stopped Jeno from blabbering along and forced him to listen to whatever it was his stern-looking mom was going to say, “maybe you shouldn’t go.”

 

“But why? It’s fine, I’ve done this before. It’s gonna be fine.”

 

“No, what we meant…,-” she paused, and her tough demeanor dropped to reveal motherly concern. She gave a his dad a quick glance before continuing on, “maybe you should stop seeing Renjun too often.”

 

His dad picked up on her trail and added on top of it his own sounding cautionary words, “You’re too young to be constantly surrounded by… _all_ _this.”_

 

Jeno only stood there in silence as he tried to _discern_ what his parents just told him. The words that slowly seep into his brain and bouncing off the membrane of his morality, making his eyes twitch with every phantom, disbelieved _‘what’s_ that pinged inside his mind like a blaring car alarm.

 

His mom must’ve grown worried over her suddenly statue-ised son (worrying that he might’ve suddenly suffered from a stroke, maybe?) that she was just about to rise from her seat when Jeno finally managed to give them a response.

 

It started off as a nervous laugh, with his gaze darting from his mom’s and dad’s and to the one unspecified spot on his ceiling. From then, his laughter only grew louder and louder, until he found himself struggling to sob through a bout of madman-like laughter-tears combination that would only strike him everytime he’s feeling especially _furious._

 

His whole body was shaking in rage when he spoke next, and it caused his voice to sound like how a lanky tree would sound when the autumn wind blew through its dried up branch. Ready to be rooted out from the ground at any moment’s notice.

 

“I’m too young for,- _did you hear what you just said?!_ Did you?!” He knew his mom saw the fire burning inside his unsteady glare, enough for her to avert her gaze as she seemingly couldn’t take the hurt dripping out from his words. And he saw his dad almost lurching towards him, as if out of instinct from hearing such venomous tone coming out of his child and he decided that _then_ was a good time to reprimand Jeno’s disrespectful ass. But he was stopped by his mom, just in time, just enough for Jeno to whisper to them one last thing before running into the night with his bike on tow.

 

_“He only has me.”_

 

It wasn’t until he was halfway through his journey, when the damp night air has dried what droplets of tears he couldn’t manage to suck back into his eyelids, before Jeno found himself whispering to himself the continuation of his parting words to his parent. Only to himself. Like a confession, after the words were mulled over and over in his mind, he decided that it was time to say it out loud. Because he could no longer bear holding such painful revelation inside his heart any longer.

 

It was a secret nobody else but him needed to know but it was enough to make Jeno pull up beside a banged up trash bin, hiding himself behind the gaping lid so nobody could see him frantically wipe the tears that wouldn’t stop spilling.

 

“And I only have him.”

 

 

_

  
  
“Welcome to my lair.”

 

The moment he stepped his foot inside Renjun’s room, Jeno finally understood why he was so adamant on keeping Jeno out of it.

 

It was tidy. That was the first thing that came to his mind. Unnaturally tidy, even. A lump of moving mass, Renjun, meeped from his bed the moment Jeno closed the door behind him and told him not to turn on the lights. Jeno was too busy trying to take in the much too familiar, yet _alien,_ place to let out any protest.

 

“Come, you can sit here,” after seeing Jeno hesitate for a little while before he took one wobbly step, Renjun laughed out their collective nerves, the awkwardness that suddenly sprouted for the first time in the almost-three-years span of their friendship, before putting his plushie down on the floor and patted the emptied spot beside his meticulously made bed, “even if I bite, cancer is non-contagious. Here.”

 

The state of the room wasn’t the thing that threw Jeno off his axis. It was the smell. Something sweet mixed with something vaguely hospital-y, and coated with the nostalgic scent of eucalyptus oil.

 

And sweet, in this sense, was like a combination of lemons and grapefruits, with a dash of peeled banana, mixed in a vat of fish slime and left under the sun for three days too long. It hung around the air like phantom mucous that made Jeno’s throat itch, desperate to cough it out.

 

“So, did they yell at you?”

 

“Just a little bit,” Jeno breathed out when he carefully sat himself down on a small space at the corner. Even with his eyes still not adjusting to the minimal light, he could see, and felt, that Renjun was trying to get himself up to sit against the wall.

 

Seeing how much he was struggling to do something as simple as supporting the weight of his upper body, it was natural for Jeno to reach over and help him. Which was a bad decision, he soon learned, because panic and the desire to not be found out turned to be a potent fuel to not only get things done, but also to punish Jeno for his innocence when Renjun firmly swatted his hand off his shoulder.

 

“You’re drenched.”

 

“Leave it be.”

 

“Let me call your mom,-”

 

_“I said leave it be.”_

 

A piece of phlegm stuck at the end of his throat caused Renjun’s voice to sound like it was one of those ‘demon voice’ used for cheap scares in horror movies, and the weirdness of it, and the suddenness of it, somehow worked to liberate the two of them from the heavy atmosphere by the means of a burst of laughter.

 

Though it wasn’t hard to miss the pained, short wheezes of an inhale that Renjun tried to mask as a faltering laughter. “It’s just an episode, it’s gonna pass,” he said, giving Jeno’s arm another swat, softer this time, with his trembling fingers, “trust me, it always pass.”

 

With his eyes closed, Renjun then gestured for Jeno to start talking. _About what?_ He didn’t know what he could possibly say to ease him through this _episode._ Jeno didn’t realise that he’d actually said it out loud, until Renjun’s voice filled his empty skull in all of its shivery glory, “anything, anything, anything, _anything, anything, anything.”_

 

Now that his eyes were well adjusted with the dark, Jeno could see the deep frown on Renjun’s forehead as he struggled to surf through a fresh wave of pain, and knew that probably something nice and lighthearted would work best in this situation.

 

“Do you remember how we first met?”

 

And so he decided, tonight’s topic is _a trip down the memory lane_. Who doesn’t like that?

 

“You had your red hair,-”

 

His plan worked, because even if his breath came out of his mouth all shaky and broken, at least Renjun could derive enough power in him to correct Jeno’s poor memory, “orange. It was orange.”

 

“You had your _orange_ hair, and you were late for the orientation session. Everyone’s eyes were on you and the only empty seat was beside mine, so everyone’s eyes were suddenly _also_ on me, the resident nerd. But then you dyed it all black the week after. And everyone forgot.”

 

He then proceeded to speak about things that they both knew like the back of their own hands, trying to find solace in familiarity. He spoke about that one time when he was mad at Renjun for a whole day because Renjun broke their ‘going to school together’ pack and left him behind at the bus stop. About how they were put to detention when caught bringing a deck of playing cards and proceeded to create a one day gambling ring with spicy macaroni packets acting as the (literal) chips. About that one stupid time when both of them dared each other to drink the rum from home economics class and walked around the school drunk for the rest of the day.

 

Sometimes he had to slow down, his words hiding fearfully behind his tonsils because he was more than ready to dash out of the room to call for Renjun’s mom when his grip, that’d found its way to wound around Jeno’s wrist, was growing far too tight and his pained whines were getting a little bit too agonising for his weak heart to handle. But each and everytime Jeno thought Renjun would finally give up, this frail little thing would only take a big gulp of air, re-orient himself to whatever center was left inside his quickly thinning life, and nod for Jeno to continue on.

 

Anything. Jeno resolved that he would’ve blabbered about anything and everything until Renjun told him to stop. And it finally happened after a few torturous hours have passed, when Renjun put his free hand on Jeno’s arm, softly this time, no swats or hits or clippings, and told him to do just that.

 

“You should go, it’s almost 12,” with how whispery his voice sounded, and how his body seemed to be melting against the wall, it was clear that either the worst has passed, or Renjun was so exhausted by everything that he couldn’t care less even if it hasn’t. “I’m feeling much better now, don’t worry,” he added, after he saw that Jeno was a bit hesitant to follow his request.

 

Jeno chewed on his lips a little bit, contemplating on the pros and cons on the thing that he was about to do, before figuratively saying _fuck it_ with a little shrug and quick scoot down the bed, so that he was now fully lying down on it, “I’m spending the night here.”

 

“What,-”

 

“It’s already too late anyway,” he said while folding his arms in mock defiance. The pout on his lips were enough to make Renjun’s exhausted self to roll his eyes, “if I go home now, I might actually die faster than you do, with a stab wound on my stomach.

 

“Besides,” Jeno added with a voice almost as silent as a whisper, “I need to ask you something.”

 

It was probably his instinct, it was probably his common sense. But whatever force was acting that night, Jeno somehow knew, deep from within his bones, that if he didn’t speak today, he will never have the chance to do so ever again.

 

“Aren’t you scared?”

 

Jeno didn’t even wait for Renjun to say any affirmative words, something indicating that yes, he was ready to engage in some q&a session, before he blurted out his question. It was only from the understanding smile on his lips that Jeno knew he was okay with it, instead of feeling attacked, or inappropriately inquired, probably.

 

“For some reason, I have a feeling that you want me to answer with a _‘yes’,”_ Renjun said as he slowly wiggled his way down the bed, only occasionally letting out little winces when he put too much of his body weight on the wrong spot before finally settling to a quiet stop when their gazes were aligned once more, “but no. No I’m not.”

 

The night was so quiet, that although their voices were so soft, Jeno could still hear clearly what it was that Renjun said. But somehow, there was something special in the way they would still lean into each other, huddled closer ever so slightly that their breaths would hit each others’ cheek with every pop of syllables.

 

“... How come?”

 

“Well, it’s more regret than anything, the fact that I will never know what I _can_ do in life. All the movies I won’t be able to see, the paintings I’ll never paint. Places I can never visit.”

 

Maybe it was special _because_ they didn’t need it, yet still reached out to have some anyway. Just like how Renjun reached out to pull Jeno’s glasses away from his face before putting it on the bedside table. His skin felt cold and clammy when it touched his cheek, sticky with sweat and still minutely shaking from whatever small ripples of pain that he still has to struggle through, “I feared it once, not gonna lie. If I’m in your position, if _I’m_ the healthy one, I think I would’ve feared it just as much as you do. But I guess it was mainly because I didn’t know when it’ll happen. Now that I know _when_ , and _how_ , I’ve learned to make peace with it, I think.”

 

“Is it like, because you’re allowed to take your time to say your goodbyes, you feel more prepared for it?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

Renjun then struggled to reach for his felt blanket that was folded nicely on the bottom corner of the bed, probably using the sound of fabric rustling again fabric to mask the thing he was about to say next. It was just his bad luck that Jeno decided to help, so that when he finally spoke, Renjun ended up whispering his secret right into Jeno’s ears. _“I’m more afraid of sleep than I’m afraid of death.”_

 

With his hands halfway full of the soft material, Jeno paused. He looked back at Renjun, who already buried his head onto his fluffy pillow. Out of pain? Out of exhaustion? Out of shame? He will never know.  
  
“Why?”

 

“It’s like I’m taking a gamble. A 50/50 chance that I won’t ever wake up again.”

 

 _‘That’s true. But that’s true in_ everyone’s _case.’_ Jeno shook his head at the stray thought and pulled the blanket over, “at least it’ll be painless.”

 

Renjun let out a small snorty laughter before pulling the blanket over his nose and agreeing with Jeno in a muffled mutter, “you’re right. At least…”

 

_

 

“I should apologise.”

 

Jeno thought Renjun has fallen asleep, from how still he’d been lying there for the last ten minutes or so. But when a voice escaped from his barely moving mouth, it was clear that he was still awake and up for some chats. That, or he was already dead and was communicating from beyond the grave,

 

“For what?”

 

When he tried to open his eyelids to give Jeno a clear look, it seemed as if they were coated in lead. So heavy and full of effort. “I’ve been so selfish. I’m sorry.”

 

Jeno would never know that a quiet apology was all it took to relief him from all the reservations that’d built up inside his heart, “you know that you can’t ever do wrong in my eyes.”

 

An empty expression lingered for a bit on Renjun’s face, before a screen of joy was pulled over it, “oh, you’re too sweet.”

 

Jeno suddenly felt so light, so much so that he could’ve bounced to the air if he wanted to. That euphoria lend him the bravery to give Renjun’s still shivering fingers a proper hand-hold. If Renjun had any qualms with him doing that, he did a good job hiding it.

 

“I think I want to go to school tomorrow.”

 

“Great. We can go together.”

 

If Jeno ever thought that Renjun didn’t want to fall asleep with his hand being held (maybe because it made him feel like he was being pitied?), it was quickly, and cleanly, blown away from his mind when he felt Renjun taking up his offer and squeezing his hand while a simple smile hung on his sleepy face.

 

Renjun then let sleep wash over him, giving up on keeping it at bay. He probably also gave up on the fact that Jeno could read the movement of his lips and knew something that he never planned on sharing to anyone else but himself.

 

_‘I’m so selfish, I’m so selfish, I’m so selfish.’_

 

 

 

_ _ _

 

 

 

Morning seemed to come in a blink.

 

One second Jeno closed his eyes, and the next he opened it up to sunlight seeping through Renjun’s beige curtain. The chirping of birds right outside the window serving as a soft version of an alarm clock.

 

With everything that happened the night before, Jeno expected that he’d wake up with a headache. Or a sore neck, at the very least. But he was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was he well rested, but not even an inch of his body was aching when he slowly pushed himself up, testing the waters by slowly rolling his shoulders, while still keeping a careful watch so as not to disturb his impromptu bed-mate.

 

He’s rolled to the other side of the bed, yet still managing to keep the tightly wounded fetal position that he’d always adapted anytime he could get away with doing so. _‘Minimises the pain,’_ Jeno remembered him saying once.

 

Like this, sleeping under a soft veil of the morning sun, Renjun looked almost healthy. His cheeks were slightly rosy from when they were mushed against the pillow, and face that showed no signs of having to fight through waves after waves of discomfort. Steady breaths, relaxed fingers, so unlike the version of Renjun that he’d learned to keep up with in the last few months.

 

If only he hadn’t lose so much weight, if he didn’t look like a pile of skin and bones covered in a fluff of felt blanket, Jeno would’ve believed him if he said he was only down by some nasty stomach bug.

 

The sound of doors opening and closing, followed suit by a dampened sound of slippers pattering against tiled floor, brought Jeno away from his unregulated early morning headspace. He wasn’t the only person awake that early in the morning.

 

The bedside clock told him that it was a quarter past six.

 

_‘I guess it’s time to get ready.’_

 

_

 

“Good morning!”

 

With his initial expectation of who the early riser was, seeing Renjun’s older brother with his bird’s nest hair standing in the kitchen proved to be a pleasant enough surprise for Jeno to let out a small jump, before loosening his stiff limbs with a short jog and a hug worthy of some bone crackings.

 

“Sicheng! I didn’t know you’re back!”

 

“I just arrived like, three hours ago,” from how tired his voice sounded, it was clear that he did not exaggerate on that tiny, useless tidbit.

 

Pushing the overly joyous Jeno slightly away from him, Sicheng’s proceeded to give him a quick and thorough scan up, down, and all over, “oh my god you’ve grown so much, this is sorcery.”

 

“Renjun never told me you’re coming home this early.”

 

“It was also a surprise for me, really, I only told him two days ago. Maybe it escaped his mind.”

 

They used to play together, the three of them. Spending lazy Friday afternoons and Saturday nights playing games and watching movies without fail, the two of them quickly (and illegally) adopting Jeno to be their third sibling without any adult’s permission (to be fair, Mrs. Huang never objected to Jeno’s constant presence in their family dinners so… who was he to deny free food?)

 

But last year Sicheng was accepted in a prestigious university that needed a fourteen hours non-stop flight to reach and they lost him. Literally. A communication black hole only broken when Renjun dropped the bomb on him four months ago.

 

Although now, standing in a peaceful morning like this, lost time felt like nothing but a theoretical concept. One year of no contact vanished like the steam on top of his cup of coffee and Jeno could do nothing more but offer him a wide grin of excitement as they could talk again once more, “I took a leave from the semester so I can, you know, _be here.”_

 

“For the final sprint?”

 

“You talk _exactly_ like him.” Sicheng said, giving Jeno’s hair a tiny ruffle. He wanted to add onto that, saying, _‘of course, I’m stuck on the hips with that snarky son of a bitch,’_ but was stopped when Sicheng forced onto him a steaming cup that basically came out of thin air, “coffee?”

 

But Jeno hasn’t even taken his first sip when he visibly saw Sicheng’s whole body suddenly _perking up,_ like a cat being scared or surprised by some threat only visible to them, “is there anything wr,-”

 

Wind rushed past his face when Sicheng basically sprinted out of the kitchen and on towards Renjun’s room.

 

“Wait,- wait a sec, what’s happening,-”

 

Only when he was an arm’s length away from the door did Jeno finally hear the thing that allerted Sicheng. It was Renjun, red faced and teary eyed Renjun dry heaving and coughing out whatever content of his stomach out onto the open. The little bit of chaos he managed to see was of Sicheng attempting to console his little brother, who was doubling over the bed with a watery, yellowish mess splattered all over the floor.

 

The door was shut quickly afterwards, after their gazes met and Renjun said, weakly, for Sicheng to, “get him away from here.”

 

 _‘I could help,’_ he wanted to say. But the door banged right in front of his nose when he was about to open his mouth, and that caused Jeno to end up being left alone, standing in a house that didn’t even belong to him, banished by the person who asked for him to be there in the first place.

 

After pacing around the small space in front of the room and overhearing conversations too intimate to ever be intercepted by an outsider like him, Jeno decided that going back to the kitchen and busying himself up with things that might help Sicheng if he ever needed any extra hands on cleaning Renjun’s room, was the best idea he had at that moment.

 

And true enough, when Sicheng finally made his way back to the kitchen, the long sigh that signified his gladness over the scene unfolding upon his eyes proved to Jeno that boiling up a pot of water and filling up the mop bucket were the right thing to do.

 

“God, you really don’t have to do this,” Sicheng let out his exhaustion in short bursts of chuckles, before taking a short respite by sitting on the kitchen stool and taking a sip of his already cooled cup of coffee. The way he was rubbing the frown off his forehead showed Jeno a one hundred and eighty degrees change from the bright person he just saw not even five minutes ago, “I’m sorry you have to see that.”

 

“I’d like it if,-”

 

“Renjun asked me to apologise to you for ruining your morning.”

 

“ _I’d like it if,_ ” Jeno repeated, firmly, taking the other empty seat right beside Sicheng’s and demanding him to pay whatever span of attention left inside his tired brain to the words he was about to say, “people would stop treating me as if I’m not ready to see all this.”

 

Jeno’s lips were trembling when he spoke next, partially due to anger, but mostly because he was trying his best not to spill his heart out on someone who yes, was his best bet to listen on all his bottled up woes, but no, was not in the right mindset to truly _listen,_ “I could’ve left him when he told me he’s stopping all his treatments. Or _even earlier,_ on the day when he broke the news. But I stayed, because I want to. So please. _Please._ Let me.”

 

There was a long span of silence, with Jeno staring up to the ceiling and blinking out the moistness out of his eyes, and Sicheng channeling his anxiety through his compulsive picking out the sticker off from the side of his mug. They only moved, jumping off from their seat when the kettle let out even just the barest start of a whistle piercing through the still air. Signifying that the both of them were waiting for anything to kick-start a movement out of their suddenly stagnant selves.

 

“You two want to go to school together, right?” He asked, some semblance of jovialness returning to his voice as Sicheng poured the content of the kettle onto a shallow bucket, “you can get ready in my room. I think I still have my old uniform in the bottom drawer. I believe you still remember your way?”

 

Jeno guessed there was no more merits he could gain from arguing his case and he only let out one short, easily swept aside sigh, before picking up the mop bucket and offering Sicheng an understanding smile, “of course I do.”

 

 

_ _ _

 

 

 

“I can sit on the basket?”

 

“Are you crazy?! I won’t be able to see the road if you sit on the basket! Do you want us to die from vehicular manslaughter before your cancer kills you?!”

 

“Then where do you expect me to sit?! Do you want to carry me on your back for three blocks?!”

 

“Boys,” cutting through their screaming match was Renjun’s mom, who’s been sitting on the sunlight drenched porch with an amused smile as she silently witnessed these two boys argue over silly things like _‘what’s the best way for the two of us to ride a bike made only to carry one person.’_

 

“I told you I can drop you off with the car.”

 

“But mom,” Renjun whined, flapping his boney arms as if he’s a toddler about to throw a tantrum, “that’s no fun.”

 

“How about you two just walk?”

 

“He’ll get too tired by the time we arrive at school,” Jeno, slightly breathless from his previous screamings, could only huff and point at a still pouting Renjun with his thumb.

 

“If you keep doing this, you’re going to be late,” she said her reminder in a sing songy tone, before leaning back on her hands and making herself comfortable for the possible second round of _kids trying to solve a non-problem._

 

Thankfully (regretfully?) Sicheng decided that he couldn’t just watch this useless episode go any longer and swooshed out from the kitchen entrance, easily scooping Renjun off the ground, ignored his whiny protests, and placing him sideways on the crossbar of Jeno’s bicycle.

 

“There. Easy, isn’t it?”

 

Sicheng’s borrowed baggy pants cuffs caused Jeno to struggle a little bit before he could bring balance back to the bike, enough time for Renjun to fumble around for a purchase before finding it on Jeno’s outstretched arms.

 

“Compromising position?” Jeno muttered through a toothy grin.

 

“If you don’t want me to cause us both to fall, shut it,” Renjun answered, also through something toothy, although his was more of a grimace than a grin.

 

“Ok lovebirds, bell’s ringing in ten so you gotta go now if you wanna make it on time,” after dropping their bags onto Jeno bike’s basket (a backpack for Renjun and a plastic bag filled with miscellaneous stationary and a half used notebook for Jeno), Sicheng sent the clown bicycle down the slope in front of their house’s block with a firm pat on Jeno’s back.

 

“Careful, careful!” Renjun’s screech masked his mom’s and Sicheng’s well wishes as they made their way through the winding road. Jeno never knew that the roads to and from Renjun’s house are so steep and treacherous. But maybe it was only because he now was carrying a cargo that did nothing but scream and squirm around like a can of heated worm.

 

 _“You gotta stop doing that if you don't want us to,-”_ his sentence was cut in short when he found himself being muffled by Renjun’s arm. A koala bear in flesh, as seemingly Renjun’d gave up on keeping his balance by himself and decided to just hang both of their lives on Jeno’s shoulders, literally. While doing so, Renjun almost knocked his glasses off his face. It ended up dangling precariously at the tip of his nose and Jeno was essentially steering his bike half-blind down a busy street.  

 

As they kept on gaining more and more momentum, Renjun’s boney fingers dug into Jeno’s shoulder blades, and the sharp pain should’ve been enough to make him scream out loud and throw them both off balance. But somehow, the feel of Renjun’s hair mushed against his neck, the wind running through it and tickling the soft skin underneath his chin was enough of a sensation to force his pained scream to do a hundred and eighty degrees turn and caused it to sound more like a high pitched barking.

 

He couldn’t stop laughing.

 

Renjun couldn’t stop shrieking.

 

When they arrived at school, they arrived looking like a pair of mad man but even with two dozens pair of eyes staring them down, Jeno decided to, for once, put up a _I don’t care what they’re thinking_ screen and took all his jolly time before dismounting from the bike and alerting Renjun that they’ve reached their destination.

 

One, because it was evident that the boy was still struggling to catch his breath.

 

And two, because Jeno could hear Renjun’s shrill sobbings slowly turning into giggles, feeling his breath dripping down his neck in sharp coughs as he told Jeno, over and over, his gratitude for the surprisingly exhilarating, high-adrenaline journey.

 

_“Oh god that was crazy, that was fucking crazy, that was,-.”_

 

If last night was Renjun’s chance to be selfish, _this_ was his.

 

_

 

“Imagine people… walking up to the casket only to see nobody there. And BAM! Enter _me_ , being reeled into the room, _preferably by you,_ Silence of the Lamb style, strapped on a plywood and propped up on a hoverboard,-”

 

“Oh my god, _yes!_ You just nyoom into the room, arms up! Then the lights go off, then there’ll be multi colored lasers, and then the speakers will blast,-”

 

_“I Will Survive?!”_

 

_“I Will Survive!!!”_

 

School was uneventful, as usual. Renjun told him that he wasn’t hoping for much from this last visit to a place where they’ve spent more than 50% of their existence in. _‘We bail if it starts to get sappy,’_ he told Jeno as they made their way to their class.

 

And yet, they could only survive a miraculous three hours before the awkwardness was much too palpable in the air. It started with the wave of shock that seemed to hit their classmate in ripples when they stepped into the room, how it caused the rate of wide-eyed stares to rise exponentially from just five seconds before. And then they started to tiptoe around them, figuratively through the way that they asked Renjun for how he was feeling, and literally, when a kid _literally_ tiptoed his way around the two of them so as to not pique their attention while he made his way to his seat.

 

“I don’t blame them,” he whispered to Jeno after the bell rang, putting an abrupt stop to the worried murmur of their peers, “I also wouldn’t know what to say to someone with a visible ticking clock slapped across their forehead.”

 

Earlier, Jeno made him promise that he would only stay around until the first break period, not wanting to risk Renjun embarrassing himself by appearing too overtly sickly, which might come to be if he pushed himself too hard. But as the events unfolded, Renjun decided to tap out of the game far earlier than they’d expected.

 

Because when the third period started, and their biology teacher began to cry and asked the class to essentially make a sappy farewell monologue for someone who was still there with them, Renjun decided that it was more than enough awkwardness to last for whatever little time he has left on this Earth.

 

“I can’t stand it, the hair on my neck was like _ew liberate us from this hell,_ I can’t! No! _Ew.”_ Jeno couldn’t quell his laughter when he heard how disgusted Renjun sounded. They decided to excuse themselves from the class, after the third student went up and started listing her good impressions on a kid that’d never even had any conversation with her more meaningful than a few _good mornings_ here and there.

 

Renjun dashed out of the room in a brilliant show of acting, and Jeno followed suit, apologising to everyone and adding that, _‘it was all a bit too much for him.’_

 

And now they were waiting for the bell to ring in their favourite spot to hide if they ever got too fed up with any of school’s shenanigans.

 

The abandoned basement floor executive bathroom, that came complete with a gaping ceiling ripe with exposed occupational hazards and a busted up lock. They had to jam a thin piece of wood into the door handle to keep it from hanging on its hinges and betraying their position to any teachers that bothered to find them. But so far, none ever did, and the dingy bathroom became a safe haven for them ever since they found it on the second week of school.

 

“Promise me you’ll never do anything sappy like… like whatever that was they were trying to do.” Renjun coughed out after they’ve finished laughing about their ideas for the Ideal™ funeral procession, before resting his head on the rusted out pipes of the sink and motioning for Jeno to stop being such a sissy pants and join him on the floor, instead of sitting on the yellowing plastic toilet cover, “it’s not your pants anyway.”

 

“Unlike you, I still have to worry about contracting tetanus.”

 

“Just take a damn shot for it, I’ll pay.”

 

In the end, there was nothing left on Jeno’s bank of excuses for him to throw at Renjun, and all he could do was sigh out his reluctance and join his _ride or die_ buddy on the disgusting floor.

 

To show how nobody ever went to this dingy, abandoned corner of their school, the moment Jeno’s butt hit the cracked up tile, towers of dust rose up from the ground in small ringlets. And it caused Renjun to cough out his lungs in crazy fits.

 

“You’re finally starting to sound like a cancer patient,” he said while running the palm of his hand firmly across Renjun’s back, “god, forget about washboard abs. You have a washboard _back.”_

 

It was a wrong move to make on Jeno’s part, because it only caused Renjun to enter another fit, this time of the laughing sort, and by the end of everything, the both of them were reduced to nothing more but a pile of meat gasping for air.

 

“You’re _literally_ killing me.” Renjun said, utterly defeated. Lying on the floor and not caring that his hair was catching all sort of dirt and other questionable gunks, his hands hitting and scratching his chest until his laughter (and coughs) prattled out to a breathless end, “you should feel lucky that you’re _you,_ because if not I would’ve killed you first.”

 

“Oh, I’m very flattered,” jovial threats are like hidden sweet niblets found only on days when Renjun is feeling good, and so Jeno treated it like what it really was, a good omen.

 

But calm and quiet can only last for so long when you’re living with hundreds of other human being, as on the exact moment when Renjun’d managed to scoot his way up, like a lazy caterpillar, to lay his dust-stricken head on Jeno’s dust-stricken lap, the bell signifying the start of the lunch break rang. As if Renjun was able to read the content of his mind, he immediately pouted when he saw Jeno reaching out for his phone from his back pocket.

 

“Gotta let me call your mom to pick you up, I don’t think you’re gonna be able to do another round of the crazy bike ride.”

 

Renjun’s pout grew even more severe as he easily snatched Jeno’s phone from his hand and placed it at the furthest point that his lazy, unmoving body could reach.

 

“You promised me you’re going to,-”

 

“I mean wait, stupid,” he said while making himself comfortable, wiggling this way and that until he settled on his trademarked position, folding his legs near his chest and making him look like a literal human cinnamon roll. “Wait until lunch break ends. I don’t want to see anymore of their pitying faces.”

 

“If you hate them so much, why bother going?”

 

“I miscalculated,” he flashed Jeno a thin lipped smile, and the way he shrugged his shoulders caused his sharp bones to jut onto Jeno’s thigh, “I never actually missed school, I only miss the things we do to escape it.”

 

Kids were starting to get out from their classes, clamoring to the cafeteria. They knew, because the poundings of hundreds of feet caused a layer of dust to rain upon them like snow on a miraculous Christmas day. Renjun had resolved to hiding the lower half of his face behind the sleeves of his shirt and were doodling nonsense on the layer of dirt on the ground. Jeno was absentmindedly picking the pieces of dust bunnies off from Renjun’s hair when his mouth suddenly blurted out a question that’d been swimming at the back of his throat for so long.

 

He said it not because he was driven by the growing silence between them, nor was it because he was afraid they won’t have anymore _later_ to spare. Jeno asked it only because he really, genuinely wanted to know, and there seemed to be no better place to ask it than now.

 

“Are you happy?”

 

Without missing a beat, Renjun answered, “if I die tonight, I won’t even mind.”

 

There was no fear in the smile he gave to Jeno. He hoped there also was none in the smile he gave back in return.

 

 

_ _ _

 

 

 _‘J_ _  
_ _I just wanna tell you.’_

 

 _‘Alert: We’re on a collision course with Sappy Town._ _  
_ _Abort, abort.’_

 

 _‘I’m serious._  
_I just wanna say thanks._  
_I couldn’t have gone through today if it wasn’t for you.’_

 

 _  
_ _‘Anytime man.’_

 

_‘Are you gonna come around tomorrow?’_

 

 _‘Nah._  
_I have math remedial._  
_Besides, you gotta spend some time with your family.’_

 

_‘But you /are/ family.’_

 

 _‘Ok, it’s getting too sappy, you’re scaring me.  
_ _Go sleep, go go.’_

 

 _‘Ok then._  
_Night!_ _  
_ _( ˘³˘)♥’_

 

 

_ _ _

 

 

 

 

The last few weeks went by with little to no commotions. Almost _no_ commotions, even. With Renjun spending nearly all twenty four hours of the day sleeping, there was truly nobody that Jeno could rouse up for any round of random shits that they usually do together.

 

He wasn’t always 100% sure if Renjun was sleeping, or if he was already half dead, as he only ever woke up to do two of his favourite things. Helping his mom prepare lunch, and greeting Jeno when he came around to his house just to check if, “you’re still breathing or not.”

 

“I hate this,” Renjun pointed at the metal tower that housed his new inseparable companion, the IV drip, “makes me feel even sicker than I already am.”

 

“Maybe they’re giving you morphine,” Jeno said, helping Renjun up from his bed with one firm tug of his outstretched hand.

 

“So now not only am I a weed addict, I’m also a morphine addict?”

 

“Truly a criminal.”

 

They then sat together on the dining table, eating like a family on one gloomy Saturday afternoon. The two of them were playing with pieces of grilled chicken, throwing it around with their chopsticks and cheering everytime they managed to throw it into the small dipping sauce bowl. Sicheng could only shake his head at all the chaos, and their mom a happy spectator, overseeing everything with a serene smile on her face.

 

_

 

Jeno has put himself through countless of imaginary scenarios of how it’ll happen. So often, in fact, that the string of events have ceased to be seen as morbid to him, and instead took in something that felt more like dull pangs of warm intimacy. Shamelessly revelling in that feeling of relief and forced camaraderie that Renjun’s death would bring.

 

One scenario had him dying while they were playing a round of Mario Kart, Renjun choking on his own saliva or a piece of spicy macaroni chips and Jeno only realising that he was gone when his car careened off from a bridge. Another scenario had him dying, very dramatically, while working on his painting. A fitful coughing spell that stopped his heart and he’d watch as Renjun’s face plopped into the messy palette and clattered lifelessly on the floor. Or maybe something simple. Another sleepover, another late night talks, another peaceful morning, only this time Renjun didn’t wake up. He would cry on Sicheng’s pajama and he could finally give their mom a hug that doesn’t feel too painfully awkward.

 

But on each and every one of it, Jeno always thought, always believed that there’ll be something that made it stand out from the rest of his day. Something abnormal, something extraordinary.

 

He hoped it’ll happen on a Friday, ideally on a Saturday, so he could lose himself in the luxury of his own home without having to socialise too much with people that wear those unbearable _pitying masks,_ as Renjun liked to call them.

 

He didn’t expect it to happen on a Tuesday morning, that one he was sure. 7 AM, right after he turned off his alarm clock.

 

 _‘One last thing he did to spite me,’_ that thought flitted into his mind when he picked up a call from Sicheng, in which they spent the first ten seconds only simmering in knowing silence, _‘one last thing he did to turn my life into a living hell.’_

 

“Is he,-”

 

 _“Yes.”_ Contrasted to his miraculously stable tone, Sicheng’s nasal, mumbly voice caused him to feel as if he was a tad bit insensitive. Or even worse, remorseless.

 

“Oh.” He didn’t know if it was due to shock, he didn’t know if after spending so much time getting prepped for it, he’d managed to bypass the first four stages of grief and teleported himself right on _acceptance?_ But he knew that he was being unnaturally calm about all this, which turned out to be a _good_ thing, as he could tell that Sicheng was using his composure as a lifeline to tether himself back to Earth. “How…?”

 

 _“In his sleep,”_ he heard Sicheng let out a long overdue exhale, and also a smile, lightening up his sentence as it came to completion, _“just like how he’d wanted it.”_

 

“Just like how he’d always wanted it…” Jeno sat up on his bed and peeked at the top of his curtained windows, trying to see, and engrave in his brain, how the sky looked when he finally got _the phone call._ Cloudless blue. How fitting. “Thankyou for telling me. Do you want me to come over later today?”

 

 _“It’s… we…,“_ he found it amusing that brothers do act alike. The way Sicheng hesitated reminded him of how Renjun was never able to refuse something that he truly wanted, and it caused Jeno to almost let slip a little laughter. Truly inappropriate.

 

In the end, he decided to help take the decision making process out of Sicheng’s hands and made both of their lives easier by giving him an undisputable offer, “don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

 

_“… Thankyou, Jeno. Really.”_

 

He _was_ calm during the call. But unfortunately, he couldn’t remember what emotion came after calm.

 

Maybe he threw up all of his pulverised, acidic dinner after that. Maybe he sobbed so hard his cries seeped out of the bathroom in echoes, causing his parents to barge in, looking all terrified and panicked. Maybe they saw their son completely bawling his eyes out and they looked at each other, exchanging some sort of _‘and this is what we feared would happen’_ look before they tried their best to console their child over a loss nobody that young should ever experience.

 

What happened after calm? He couldn’t remember.

 

Or maybe he made himself forget.

 

Either way, maybe that’s for the best.

 

_

 

“Do you want to see him?”

 

Sicheng, not-even-bothering-to-hide-his-tears Sicheng was the one who answered the door. It was nearing eleven in the afternoon but his excuse for why their ( _his,_ now) mom was nowhere to be found was because she was getting ready to deal with all the formalities that came in the same package as their extended family.

 

“Of course.”

 

But truthfully, the word that he wanted to say was no. No, no, no he didn’t want to see. Why did he have to? With every step they took, first through their kitchen, then rounding up around the living room, then past the dining table until finally he could see the closed door of his bedroom, Jeno could feel the bile rising from the base of his empty stomach once again.

 

Empty. Just like the room. It’s just an empty room. Nobody’s in it. Why did he have to come in?

 

“Will you be okay?” Sicheng asked, his hands already grasping the door handle but stopped short before pushing it open, “do you want me to… go with you?”

 

At first he thought that Sicheng was pitying him, and it nearly led to an automatic response of _‘get mad’_ to kick in. But wait. _Wait_ , his common sense told him, _look closer._ The way Sicheng looked at him was the complete opposite of pity. It was an almost maternal display of empathy that nearly caused Jeno to crumble under the pressure. He wanted to say _yes, yes go in with me, hug me and coddle me and shelter me from all this messed up shit._ But in the end he managed to scrape up whatever strength he had left and refused his offer with a final compulsive push of his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

 

“I’ll be fine.”

 

But fine, in this case, stands for _freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional._

 

_

 

He’s imagined this moment so many times before.

 

But Jeno had to quickly learn that no fantasy was ever enough.

 

No amount of knowledge, no amount of offhanded jokes, that now Jeno learned was just Renjun’s way to ease him into the concept of death that initially seemed to be such a taboo for him, was ever enough to ready him to face the real deal.

 

All of his five senses were instantly assaulted the moment he stepped inside the room. His skin heating up in a flare so intense it almost made him lost his balance. The unnatural stillness in the usually vibrant room caused his ears to ring as if their school bells were housed inside them. That sweet scent of fermented citrus swelled into something so strong it almost had its own personality, like two fingers jabbed right up his nose, luring up the bile to the back of his throat. Bitter. The acid stinging his tongue, just like the prickle of tears were blurring up his vision.

 

For the better, he thought, all for the better.

 

Because then he didn’t need to see, all that clearly, his first dead body. His first funeral procession of some sort.

 

His parents never let him go to any and yet there he was. Staring right at the eerily life-like, lifeless body of his _former_ friend as he lied there on his meticulously made bed.

 

Morbid curiosity was the only reason why he bothered to trudge along and sat at the empty side of the bed, and not bailing out the room, out of the house, out of the city, pulling his hair out of his scalp like a mad man. Morbid curiosity, and Renjun’s request that asked him to touch his fingers and see if those CSI shows are true. To see if they really do get rigid, like they were made out of concrete. _That,_ was the only reason why Jeno bothered to reach out and touch the pale, cold fingers of the body.

 

In a bizzare sort of way, Jeno instantly knew that it was the best decision he’d ever made. Because then he realised just how _empty_ the body was after the soul, the driver, the brain or whatever it is that people believed in, has left the cockpit. This was not Renjun, this was just an empty jar that no longer housed _him_.

 

 _‘There was none of you left behind,’_ Jeno thought, at least not in this realm that he’s living in, so why should he dwell on it? When there’s nothing left to be dwelt on?

 

And just like that, _freedom._

 

At least for now. At least until it all came back to him when he came across something that reminded him of Renjun, and everything will wash over him like a rising tide in the morning. But for now, he was liberated, and after living with constant high-level anxiety for the last six months, Jeno had learned to cherish this scarce moments of relief as if it might be his last.

 

The darkness, the grief, the fear.

 

_Bye for now._

 

Only a tinge of regret was left behind. But what is life if it was without regret? And so Jeno grasped on that feeling so hard, just as hard as he was grabbing on the former-Renjun’s rigid-digit.

 

“Fuck, this is crazy.” Jeno stifled a wet laughter with the sleeve of his sweater, before slapping his mouth with his open palm after he caught up with the fact that he’d just swore in front of a dead body.

 

But his blunder only caused his laughter to grow in volume, and in sincerity. By the end of his fit, Jeno only hoped that Sicheng heard _sobbings_ , instead of laughter. “This is messed up,” he sighed, putting his glasses down on the tidy bed cover so he could easily wipe the tracks of tears from his cheeks, and pulling with them a small smile because he could suddenly hear a voice, so clear, as if the owner of that phantom sound was standing inside his brain, saying the words that were dripping with mischievousness,

 

_‘You tell me.’_

 

_

 

Jeno thought he’d walked into his own intervention when he stepped out of the bedroom, with Sicheng and their mom sitting on one side of the dining table and beckoning him to come over as they were each holding a colourful envelope, “he asked us to do this together.”

 

“Now?”

 

The answer came in the form of an envelope of his own, handed over by the red-eyed yet still ever so composed Mrs. Huang, “he told me so.”

 

A dark grey (Mommy Huang got a pastel purple and Sicheng, of course, a rich gold), thick envelope sealed with a wax seal and Jeno had to fight the urge of saying out loud, _‘why are you so extra?’_ Instead, he weighed the envelope on his hand and said, “no lawyer needs to be present for this?”

 

Sicheng chuckled at his throwaway comment, and Mrs. Huang only gave him a polite laughter, as both were too busy carefully opening their envelopes and unfurling the pages of _“will”_ that Renjun left for them. Especially written to be read while they were waiting for the hearse to come. Or so Renjun himself said, written on a small piece of paper separate from the pile of letters that lie underneath it.

 

“Dear Sicheng,”

 

His mom firmly swatted his arm when Sicheng suddenly, and unexpectedly, began reading his share of letters. She glared at him as if she was silently yelling, _‘respect his privacy!’_ But then Sicheng pointed out the first line on his letter that said, _“you can read this out loud or read this to yourself, I don’t mind. I’m already gone and may no longer feel any sense of embarrassment from people reading my writings. Proceed.”_

 

Sicheng’s letters dealt with a considerably light-hearted family matters. _Give my plushies to cousin A and B,_ and _here’s the list of username and passwords of my social medias, just in case anyone is curious,_ kind of light-hearted. But he did give a long pause when he reached the last sheet of Renjun’s three-page essay, seemingly too engrossed with it to bother sharing it to everyone in the room. If _Sicheng_ was choked up by a letter, then who was he to even attempt?

 

But just when Jeno was about to give up entirely and maybe excuse himself to the bathroom before flushing himself down to the septic tank, head first, Jeno found that there was a continuation to the preamble of Renjun’s letter,

 

_“The choice is in your hand. Can you read out loud something so personal? Sicheng, I know you can. Mom? I don’t think so, please don’t force yourself. Jeno? Who am I kidding, you can’t even tell how you feel after you stubbed your toe. Better zip it.”_

 

Jeno shared a meaningful look with Mrs. Huang after they both finished reading the prelude, after they finished listening to Renjun’s letter to Sicheng. She _might’ve_ actually gave Jeno a sincere smile, and she _might’ve_ also actually gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. The look in her eyes told him something that not even his mother had told him, ever before, _‘it’s ok if you decide to not do it. Whatever your choice is, I’ll be right here.’_

 

_‘I’m sorry Renjun but I might’ve actually be in love with your mom.’_

 

 

_ _ _

 

 

_  
Dear J,_

 

I know you have reservations on the fact that we’ve only known each other for however long it was. Are we close enough friends for you to deserve this? The good, the bad, and the ugly? (And an honorary spot in my will?)

 

Of course, stupid.

 

Here’s the thing: up till this point, we’ve known each other for nearly a quarter of our lives (after subtracting the first five years because did you remember anything from that time period? I don’t think so). A quarter of one’s existence is a long time, don’t you think? A quarter for my mom is ten years. A quarter for you might be fifteen, twenty years.

 

So if one day you ever doubt yourself, for whatever reason, remember. You’re my best friend for a quarter of _my_ life.

 

That’s massive. That’s significant. Ok?

 

And nothing can ever change that fact, becaus _e_ the other half of this friendship equation is _dead._ So just take my words for it.

 

Ok. So now we reach the will part of the letter.

 

Well, for you, I’m bequeathing all of my school notes (you lazy note taker), and some paintings.

 

You’ll know which ones.

 

(They’re the ones that feature your face on them).

 

Be proud. You could’ve been my Mona Lisa. But I died. Oh well.

 

One last thing.

 

I promised you no sappy town, but just hear me out on this one.

 

Remember me.

 

You still have your whole life ahead of you and my one quarter might just be a one-thirtieth for you but please, remember me, because only by that can I live on (ok that’s creepy let me try it again).

 

Thankyou Jeno. I can’t ever thank you enough for everything that you’ve done, and will do. I might’ve made fun of you for it in the past but yes, please. Please take care of my family. We’ve been friends for so long my mom and Sicheng would’ve seen a little bit of me in you in everything that you do. Your presence will surely help ease them into the concept of my non-presence (?).

 

I know you love them, and you know they love you.

 

Just as much as I did.

 

Oh yes, _you know exactly what I mean_ (don’t lie about it, I know you do too. Sicheng said you are being so painfully obvious about it) _._ I went there. The dead person went there.

 

Probably should’ve said it when I was still alive. But I thought ‘gosh, I’ve been so selfish, I can’t possibly die peacefully if I ended up leading him on a doomed relationship.’ So I didn’t. It’s easier to forget something that never started, right? I hope I did the correct thing. I hope I didn’t mess you up man.

 

To be fair, I didn’t know I would die this quickly. I thought I’d have more time to muster up some courage to say it. I guess that's a lesson for you going forward.

 

Ah well, there’s no use dwelling on the what if.

 

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.

 

I’m okay now. It’s time for you to go out there and find your own quarter.

 

_

 

“... and then he signed here with a _love, Renjun_ , and a lip stain mark, I mean he’s silly,-”

 

Jeno’s words were cut as all air from his lungs were forcibly forced out in one strong puff, when he found himself being hugged to the inch of his life by both Sicheng and his mom.

 

They all were too busy snorting through waves after waves of tears and watery snot to talk, but Jeno could easily understand the message they were trying to convey.

 

From Sicheng’s patting his back, _thankyou._

 

From Mrs. Huang’s soft sushing, _you’re not alone._

 

From the warmth that spread from their tangled limbs, seeping through his own and curling around his heart in a tender embrace, _you’ve always been family._

 

He knew it, from then on and going forward, it’s okay, it’s alright, it’s going to be fine.

 

Besides, it’s Renjun’s last will for him. To go out there and find his own quarter.

 

And so he will.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I guess I'm sorry...?  
> I put the blame for this story entirely on @AsianNoodles because she wrote a story that inspired this heh  
> Besides, I MISS WRITING NOREN !! and this story sort of commemorates my /nearly/ one year status as an nctzen :DD
> 
> I write to say things I can't speak out, and I've put so many of myself in this story so  
> yall know me better than even my best friend L O L 
> 
> hmu @ my twitter [@moon__soil](https://twitter.com/moon__soil) ~


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